Posted by: SixOfSpades

The more options and flexibility you provide for the install, the better.

Understood, but . . . considering the immense flood of interest this post has generated, I don't think I'll put much more effort into this. Maybe I'll add an option that boosts the Vampires' stats, but that would be about it. If people want their Vampires to be tougher as well as more realistic, odds are they're going to be installing more combat-related mods anyway.

So far in my playtesting, the Vampires are posing a nice level of challenge, at least in my opinion. We're not using any NPP at all (okay, Aerie's wearing the Amulet, but I'm keeping her out of melee anyway), and Mazzy's gotten Level Drained a couple of times, but that's it. My F/M/T can go one-on-one with Bodhi and usually avoid getting LD'd at all. I need to fiddle with the Vampiric Touch a bit (even though the Vampire heals from the hit, their mouse-over scroll shows them apparently becoming more Injured), but that should be easy enough to fix.

Posted by: Miloch

As far as I can tell, people download mods that make the enemies nastier and the items überer.

I don't know, but I think "most" people seem to want more realism, not everything overpowered. People still seem to install "Realistic kobolds" from Aurora even though it is technically somewhat of a nerf. The more options and flexibility you provide for the install (within reason), the better.

Posted by: SixOfSpades

I'm currently playtesting a component of my Tweakpack that shifts the primary threat of Vampires away from Level Drain and toward Vampiric Touch. Vampires can still Level Drain, they are just limited to 1 Level-Draining attack per round: Their attacks are Claw / Claw / Bite (or up to Claw/Claw/Claw/Claw/Bite, depending on individual ApR), and only their actual fangs can drain levels. The goal of this was to reduce the importance of Negative Plane Protection, and make Vampires a credible threat whether your Tank is under NPP or not . . . not to mention to give certain classes (like Monks & Thieves), quite literally, a fighting chance.

My question is: How difficult do people want the new Vampires to be? As far as I can tell, people download mods that make the enemies nastier and the items überer. Currently, my tweak alters the dynamics of Vampire defense and (to a limited extent) Vampire combat, as they now hit harder & heal themselves during the fight, but the only actual combat bonuses they recieve are small (like, -2) THAC0 boosts for higher-level Vampires. Is this what people want? Are there enough fans of different difficulty levels to justify multiple install options, or should I just leave it at a simple weapon switch so that my tweak can be combined with things like Tactics & SCSII, for increased player control over difficulty?